Bill Gates: I fear we are making the same mistakes again

Imagine there is a small fire in your kitchen.

The fire alarm goes off and warns everyone in the vicinity of the danger.

Someone calls the emergency number.

You try to put out the fire, maybe you even have a fire extinguisher under the sink.

If that doesn’t work, you now know how to evacuate the place safely.

When you leave, a fire truck is already arriving.

Firefighters use the hydrant in front of your house to put out the flames before your neighbors’ houses are in danger of catching fire.

We must prepare to fight epidemics the same way we prepare to fight fires.

If a fire is left to burn out of control, it poses a threat not just to a home, but to an entire community.

The same goes for the infectious diseasesbut on a much larger scale.

As we well know from COVID-19, an outbreak in one city can quickly spread across a country and then around the world.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) first described COVID-19 as a pandemic just over three years ago, marking the culmination of a collective failure in pandemic preparedness, despite numerous warnings.

And I fear we are making the same mistakes again.

The world has not taken as many preventive measures for the next pandemic as I would like to hope.

However, it’s not too late to do that prevent history from repeating itself.

The world needs one well funded system be ready to leap into action as soon as danger arises.

We need a fire department for pandemics.

I am optimistic about a network that WHO and its partners are creating called Global Health Emergencies Corps.

This network of the world’s top leaders in health emergencies will work together to prepare for the next pandemic.

Just as firefighters conduct drills to practice responding to a fire, the Emergency Corps intend to perform drills to practice outbreak response.

The exercises will ensure that everyone – governments, health professionals, first responders – know what to do when a potential outbreak occurs.

One of the body’s most important tasks will be to act quickly stop the spread of a pathogen.

​ Rapid action requires countries to have large-scale testing capabilities to identify potential threats in good time.

Environmental monitoring, such as wastewater testing, is critical, as many pathogens appear in wastewater. human waste.

If a wastewater sample tests positive, a rapid response team would deploy to the affected area to find people who may be infected, implement a response plan, and provide much-needed community education on what symptoms to look for and how to stay protected.

As COVID-19 has shown, a pandemic is a billionaire problem and mitigating this difficulty should not depend on volunteers.

We need a body of professionals from all countries and regions, and the world must find a way to reward them for the time they spend preparing for and responding to transnational threats.

They must be able to field teams of professionals ready to help Check where outbreaks start from.

For this to be successful, the Emergency Corps must build on existing networks of expertise and must be led by people such as the heads of national public health agencies and their epidemic responders.

It is difficult for a single country to stop the spread of a disease; many of the most significant actions require coordination at the highest levels of government.

The world must prepare for a multi-alarm fire, the kind of fire response that requires different units and departments.

These types of fires are rare, but when they do happen there’s no time to waste.

Local emergency services need to know they have a team of well-trained firefighters who will work together seamlessly.

They can’t arrive on the scene and find that their hoses don’t fit the nearest fire hydrant or that they have a completely different strategy than the other units.

The Emergency Corps will ensure that countries and health systems are coordinated before an emergency, so that everything runs smoothly in times of crisis.

this is where Practice makes a master.

By conducting exercises and simulations, the corps will discover areas where countries and leaders are not ready and help us fix them now.

It’s also important to practice responding to different types of pathogens.

Human respiratory diseases are a major concern as they can go global very quickly.

(See how fast COVID-19 has spread.) However, they are far from the only threat.

What if the next pathogen with pandemic potential spread via droplets on surfaces?

Or if it is sexually transmitted like HIV?

And if it is the result of bioterrorism?

Each scenario requires a different response, and the Emergency Corps can help the world prepare for each one.

We cannot afford to be caught off guard again.

The world must act now to ensure COVID-19 becomes the latest pandemic and one of the most important steps we can take is to support the world’s leading health experts, WHO, and invest in the Corps. can reach your full potential.

For this, you will need two things:

First, public health leaders from all countries must participate.

The next pandemic could strike anywhere, so the First Responder must draw on expertise from all corners of the planet, including national disease and research agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of United States Health.

Second, we need richer countries to step up and contribute funds for this to be a reality.

I believe WHO remains our best tool to help countries stop epidemics and the Global Health Emergency Corps will go a long way towards a pandemic-free future.

The question is whether we have the foresight to invest in that future now before it’s too late.

c.2023 The New York Times Society